Analysis of the Preferences for a New Convenient Seafood Product: Empirical Application for Spain and Norway

Fish and seafood products represent a very healthy food, low in saturated fats and offer an excellent source of protein essential for our health. However, very often, consumer behaviour would seem to infer that seafood products do not rank particularly highly in terms of preference, this being due to the perception of various physical and psychological costs, which represent barriers to consumption. Consequently, there is an opportunity to develop new tailor-made seafood products more adapted to recent demand. The aim of this study is to analyse the overall preference of young consumers for such a new seafood product. The experiments were carried out in two European countries: Spain and Norway, with samples of 349 and 296 young people respectively. The study permits to infer how consumers weight the product dimensions against each other when arriving to overall preference for the product and also to estimate how these have an influence on overall satisfaction and future intention to consume. Evidence suggests that liking for the sensory aspects plays a dominant role in (sea)food product choice and consumption, as it explains most of the satisfaction and intention to consume the product. The relative contribution of health and convenience aspects is significant only on intention to consume, but not on satisfaction. Consequently, appropriate strategies for promoting seafood eating behaviour among young people might benefit from an increase attention towards product likes and/or convenience rather than messages emphasizing health alone.